Back to Ted
“No, stop farming, infant mortality rates are supposed to be over 50%!”
Yes, let’s have exponensial groth instead.
The farming is okay. Just make sure to discourage anyone from feeling they have some sort of divine ownership over the land. Examples:
Little Johnny says “This is my land!” Knock that little bugger over and say “it’s mine now.”
If John says “God has given me this land to carry out his will!” turn that fucker into fertilizer so that he may be of use to society.
So if you spend months preparing a harvest, you’d be cool with someone turning up in the night and taking the crops after you’ve done all the hard work? After all the land wouldn’t being to you.
They took more than was fair, so it wouldn’t be fair.
Group ownership of a resource isn’t in conflict with controlling the resource, or having laws and practices to determine how it’s used.
Kinda like how we all own Yellowstone park, but no one is free to bottle and carry off all the water from old faithful.
So do you think it’s fair for a group of people to raid a farm and pick what they haven’t contributed to growing as long as they take just enough to feed themselves, piggybacking off the work of the farmer? Why should the farmer agree to this?
Edit: rewrote the question to satisfy people who think asking questions about is somehow combative.
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Sounds like you’re purposely twisting the person you’re responding to’s words to make them sound bad. It just ends up making you sound combative and doesnt further your arguement
Not really, I’m just trying to understand their position. It’s not combative to ask pertinent questions.
Its not pertinent questions if you invent a scenario that the person you have questioned have not said they support. Do you think its fair to blame someone for something they did if a person put a loaded gun to their head and told them to do it? (See? My question has NOTHING to do with anything you’ve stated previously)
I invented a hypothetical scenario for a thought experiment yes. I don’t think it’s implausible as a scenario in a communal situation. If there is no private farmland property there is nothing to stop people just straight up taking things and abusing the goodwill of the farmer.
“raid” implies non-consent, so no, that’s not fair.
It’s also not fair for a farmer to find some prime farmland, build a fence around it and say no one else can touch it, and then keep everything it produces to himself, and then call everyone who wasn’t able to claim good land but still wants to eat a thief.
Why does he get rights to the land just because he said it’s his? That leads to feudalism.
“Civilization” is about finding balance to what’s fair.
It’s unfair for people to want something for nothing.
That extends to people wanting food, and also to the farmer claiming land.
Some arrangement where the farmer gets to keep his crops, but can’t exclude people from also working the land, with some sort of communal oversight to make sure the land is being worked well seems fair.deleted by creator
I agree the word raid was the wrong word to use there
They don’t just find land and build a fence around it though in the modern era, that’s extremely reductionist. They pay for the privilege to work the land. Society as a whole agree the land is his because of this.
How do you parse how much belongs to the farmer and how much belongs to the community? I would argue we already have an arrangement like that. Who oversees this and what do they get out of if?
Most importantly where is the incentive to maximise yield if people are just growing personal crops? What if you want to eat but don’t want to work the land?
You’re moving your goalposts at this point. The original point was literally about people claiming land in a primitive extraction system.
In the modern era people also don’t just walk up and demand bushels of barely from farmers, so ignoring the entirety of a comment to reply with how changing the context makes it irrelevant is just a bad faith discussion tactic.Yes, a modern economic system is hard to develop inside of a single comment. I hope we can at least agree that feudalism is bad, despite it respecting the Lord’s property rights, and also that no one is okay with letting the Saxon horde take all our grain.
And, to jump straight to your questions about the modern day: I would propose a system where the vast majority of the engines of production would be worker owned, allowing them to select their own management as primary shareholders.
By merit of existing in society people would be entitled to food, shelter, medicine, a means to better themselves, and the basic dignites of modern life (clothing, the ability to have children, the ability to do more than sit in the floor and stare at the wall).
Beyond what’s needed to provide these basics, the excess value produced would be given to those that produced it in the form of “currency”, which can be exchanged for “goods” and “services”.I’m aware that’s not how the modern world works,but evidently there are many in this thread who thinks that’s how it should work. I don’t think I’m engaging in bad faith whatsoever, I’m trying to actively address your points.
Why should workers own the means of production? What is incentivising them to even create the means of production without profit motive?
If workers own the means of production, what would stop them from deciding they’d rather sell said means to a capitalist for a profit?
Does every worker have an equal ownership? Does someone who has been working there for 10 years have the same rights as someone who is new? How do you decide this and who is overseeing this? What mechanisms exist to stop the primary shareholders from just assuming control and deciding to pay wages to people instead?
You have an ideological disagreement with private ownership is how im interpretting your stance unless im misunderstanding. However. The idea of these communal structures society wide has died long ago because it simply can’t work inside the framework of how human beings are biologically wired. We are tribal primates, feudal hierarchical structures continue to be proven as inevitable despite all of our best efforts. Even with communism some of the earliest writings out of Russia one of the immediate concerns brought about by Russian revolutionaries was the concern that the class hierarchy in communism begins with the inception of the revolutionary class (those who are organizing and leading the revolution) and without fail thats what happened in every communist state. The revolutionaries took over and the first thing to happen is establishment of class hierarchy just like what happens in capitalist society. Collective agriculture in Russia and in China and in central america and in north korea lead to millions starved to death.
capitalism is a fucked up system. Rife with exploitation and amorality. But its also the system that has lifted the most people globally out of abject poverty than anything else in human history. It has raised life expectancies higher than ever before seen. It has lowered infant mortality by ridiculous levels. The number of people dying in war is lower than ever.
You have a government that in its constitution says right in the headline is “to provide for the general welfare” of its citizens. If you want to talk about more fair levels of distribution of essential resources then you utilize your government to negotiate buying food from the farmer and instituting a distribution mechanism for the people. Same reason why in my opinion I believe medicare needs to beable to negotiate with drug companies over prices. There needs to be a middle ground.
Yes, you have misinterpreted my position. I’m not opposed to private property. I love having stuff. Stuff is some of my favorite things to have, truth be told.
I’m opposed to hoarding, and I’m opposed to exploitation.
If the farmer wants to farm the land and sell the food, I’m all for that. If the land owner wants to have the farmer farm the land, then take all the money from the farmer selling it, keep most of it and pay the farmer just enough to get by, I think that instead the farmer should get that money.
When your contribution to the process is “I have stuff, so you should give me more”, then I question why you’re needed for the system to function.
stealing food so you can survive is always justified
Sounds like you aren’t intelligent enough to understand this. This is why fascists attack schools first, they need people like you.
Instead of an ad hominem attack you could try and explain it better.
Small-scale, local farming is where it’s at. Growing a bucket of potatoes on a balcony or helping out at a community garden are small but achievable steps to bring the food closer to us. In addition to sustainability, it promotes knowledge of how to produce our own food and reduces dependence on large-scale monoculture farming.
It’s nice to walk a few paces and pick up an ingredient for dinner with the satisfaction that you nurtured it. But mainly, I just don’t feel like going to the grocery store as much lol.
Check out !BalconyGardening@slrpnk.net :)
I think most of the things you say are true, but small local farming isn’t going to solve world hunger. The bigger a farm gets the more efficient it can operate. The progress we made as a species boils down to how much more efficient we can do stuff.
For sure! Industrial-scale farming has been integral to the population growth of our modern society. It doesn’t hurt to alleviate a small amount of pressure from those systems at a local scale in a sustainable way. I mainly just find it fun to grow a few veggies here and there and thought others may be interested. :)
Absolutely, I planted some tomatoes and very spicy peppers. All of them failed (planted in the wrong month I guess). Definitely a learning experience and definitely something I’ll try next summer.
I really hope the plants survive the winter, but I might have to start from seed again
I do sure wish I had a balcony. I grew peppers and cherry tomatoes on my windowsill a few years in a row but the effort isn’t worth it for an apartment…
I feel ya! We work with what we can and if the space you have isn’t feasible, then that’s okay if it simply doesn’t work out.
That being said, here’s a few options to consider but do what you want. :)
One option is to grow some herbs since those tend to get pricey and they therefore offer the best bang for your buck. Plus they take up little space. Starting from seeds is the most cost effective (only a couple dollars for 1000s of seeds). Sow them in an empty plastic egg carton, nursery pots, or other upcycled plastic container. Then, you can germinate and grow under grow lights. Don’t bother with “grow light” marketed ones. Just the brightest, whitest generic LED bulb will do. If you run it all day, it’ll only cost a couple cents per month. Then, you can harvest fresh herbs year-round! Lamps can be found for cheap and sometimes free on Facebook marketplace.
Another option is finding a community garden in your area.
I do already keep herbs going as much as possible! (though I don’t do it from seed, lazy bum)
The community garden idea is great, but the ones in the city center here are… expensive and quite “hipsterish”.
It really is so much more convenient getting seedlings!
Also that’s bizarre that your community garden is expensive - kinda defeats the purpose of it.
Anyways, enjoy the rest of your day Moghul!
Thanks, you too!
I grow tomatoes in my balcony. Constructive and fulfilling activity, love it.
But I can’t imagine eating like 15 tomatoes per year lol
And that’s ok! Nobody expects to live off of a small garden, nor is it feasible for everybody to grow everything they eat.
It provides many benefits already, such as being a fulfilling activity as you said. It also cuts down on food waste since you can harvest when you eat it and leave it on the plant for a bit longer otherwise. It also reduces trips to the grocery store and reduces emissions of importing food over long distances. Finally, it’s much cheaper if you grow from seed and upcycle plastic containers for planting. Especially if you grow expensive crops like fresh herbs.
Thank you for referring this community. Its the first time I see it and it was very inspirational. Cheers
Small scale farming would not be able to sustain the human population as it stands.
No, but it will help. Do you currently have a plan if you were unable to purchase food at the store?
How does local farming help reduce systemic food waste?
It takes revenue away from a system that perpetuates it.
Probably starve to death after I ran out of tinned food.
Didn’t you read the meme? Stop farming!
Could’ve been hunting mega fauna with my homies but here I am with depression and anxiety
One theory is that hunting and gathering stopped because the human population exceeded what could be supported by mega fauna, and early peoples had no choice but to settle down and defend what resources they could gather.
It likely started with semi permanent settlements, simple fortifications that could be returned to year over year, and when it became too difficult to leave again, or when they found themselves unable to return to a location they were expecting to, they settled down permanently.
But you really can’t go out and hunt when you can’t leave. So they started to depend on agriculture, and what livestock they’d been able to keep with them.
Right. And then there’s the fact that agriculture is a trap in that once you adopt it you can never go back and anyone nearby who doesn’t adopt it as well will eventually be outcompeted and disappear as a people, or they will be driven into ever more remote and inhospitable environments. None of this requires anything like foresight or intention either.
plain old evolution
Just don’t assign corporate ownership of the fields and it’s all good baby.
Just don’t overadjust and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kolkhoz
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Farming basically invented work and employment. They should have realized something was not right about that back then.
It invented having a relatively reliable food surplus.
I wish I could make all these neoprimitives actually live the life for a week so they shut up forever about it.
I wish I could get them to come to an actual farm and realize we aren’t trying to kill them or ruin the world.
Right, because hunting and gathering isn’t work. People just got food into their mouths doing nothing - like wild animals.
There’s a difference between working for your own and your communities good and working for someone else while not being allowed to keep your (fair share of) product/profit.
That’s not how farming started though. They started farming so that they can feed themselves and their community. It eventually devolved into that, but it’s not how it started.
They knew. Agriculture is what created the whole concept of “work”.
I would argue the opposite; that semi-agricultural societies --pre-columbian California is a good example-- had no way of knowing where an increasing reliance on predictable harvests would eventually take them.
bro credit scores aren’t even real
True but last time the banks stopped caring about them we had the global financial crisis
Do you think it is possible for our current level of scientific knowledge to exist in a hunter gather society?
that’s stilt houses and rice terracing. those people are gonna invent rectangular sails and fire pistons
No! You’re looking at this the wrong way. Bisophenol A is the most affordable gender affirmation therapy in existance.
Only works in one direction though.
Username doesn’t check out.
noone is stopping you from living in an African savannah hunting gazelles
Bruh, there are quite a few things stopping people from doing that, what are you dumb or something?
what? you can’t take a trip to Tanzania and just disappear?
They arrest people for poaching. If they don’t just shoot them.
